"From the author of Blame, a new novel about the unexpected damage inflicted by romantic entanglements. It's the early 1980s: Reagan is in the White House and his trickle-down theory is gaining traction in the national psyche. Cressida Hartley, twenty-eight, a PhD candidate in economics, has moved to her parents' shabby A-frame in the Sierras, hoping to finish her dissertation about art in the marketplace. Though she came seeking solitude, she finds herself increasingly drawn into the life of the small mountain community, and she's seduced by a local lodge owner, Jakey Yates, a big, burly, immensely attractive man in his late forties. Rick Garsh, the local contractor, gives Cress a part time job. Through Rick she meets the Morrow brothers, two talented fine-finish carpenters. They are handsome, amusing, intriguing, and married. As Cress tells her best friend back home in Pasadena, being a single woman on the mountain amounts to a form of public service. Increasingly uninspired by her dissertation, Cress allows love, adultery, and obsession to commandeer her life, and soon she becomes the victim of her own perilous reasoning. Michelle Huneven is one of our most searching, elegant novelists--Richard Russo has called her "a writer of extraordinary and thrilling talent." In Off Course, she tells the cautionary tale of an intelligent young woman seeking her place in life only to discover that love is the great distraction, and impossible love the greatest distraction of all"--

"A rediscovered classic from the author of For Two Thousand Years, this remarkable debut novel presents nuanced snapshots of love in the early twentieth century. Stefan Valeriu, a young man from Romania who has just completed his medical studies in Paris, spends his vacation in the Alps, where he quickly becomes entangled with three different women. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery. Women's four interlinked stories offer moving portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited loves and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In the same strikingly eloquent style that would characterize his later, more political writings, Mihail Sebastian explores profound feelings of longing, otherness, empathy, and regret"--

"When her gambling addict husband died, Sarah Green was left penniless--and with two children to raise. Since then, she's been desperate to keep her professional and personal lives on firm financial footing. And what could be safer than dating an accountant and working at a non-emergency crime help line? But then Sarah's aunt dies, leaving Sarah her once famous--now flailing--lingerie shop. With her fashion background, Sarah reluctantly decides to make a go of it, even if that means breaking up with her too-prudent boyfriend over the risk. Suddenly Sarah finds herself falling for Hugh, the handsome struggling actor she hired to renovate her new boutique, and entering a prestigious lingerie competition. Taking chances has never been her forte, but the built-in support of family and friends could give her the boost she's been looking for..."--